My husband and I talk FOR Snowie. "Snowie says <insert whatever he said>." And Snowie sometimes snorts at the appropriate moment!! And sometimes we use him to say what we want: "Snowie says you must do <whatever> for me." Madness. But can be very, very funny. And effective.
We each have different voices when we talk for the dogs - and different voices for each dog. So my husband would say 'momeee can we haf our teeee naw?' for Mollie in a very 'puppyish' voice ...
When Brogan went deaf (or rather when I realised he was finally 100% deaf), I stopped talking to him for a while because I thought, "This is dumb to keep talking - he can't even hear me." It was so depressing and he sensed it too. Then I just thought, "What the heck" and started talking to him again. We both felt MUCH better. I absolutely would let Mama Jodhi pick which path to take when hiking. If I picked, we often ended up on a cliffside with no exit route. Mama Jodhi always knew the way home and never picked a dead end. After she passed, Brogan and I ended up either lost or dangling off a cliff more often than I'd like to admit.
Oh yeah.....we have fully fledged and sophisticated doggy conversations in Lilly's "voice". I just assumed that was normal
As someone who has been channeling a certain Bodeguero (in an Antonio Banderas accent no less) for the past month, I say, "totally normal".
Well just imagine...that our dogs...actually had a thread on this forum, where they wrote their own posts! How hilarious (or mad...) would that be?
Well, I talk to my dogs too - only I don't talk to my dogs instead of addressing a stranger! If I want to say something to a person, I say something to a person. If I wanted to ask whether my dogs could say hello, for example, I'd ask whether it was ok for my dogs to say hello - and I'd address the other being that understood English! I wouldn't ask my dog instead of the other person!
I think it was on the Positive Gundogs page, or maybe Click Gundog, where someone posted the article about not giving your dogs an instruction, but asking them if they could do something for a week/month/whatever? So, instead of "Sit!", it was, "Could you sit?". It had rave reviews. I can't say I've tried it properly, but I do use that approach if I know my dogs aren't "feeling it". There's no point me saying "sit!" if I know they're not going to do it for whatever reason, so being a bit more conversational about it helps us both along the way to what I am after. Makes them more chilled out and me less narky.
I have a tail similar to @Granca. I was walking uphill in winter and two women and two teenage girls were coming downhill. The snow was deep but there were two paths. I only needed one path and it seemed reasonable that one of the women or one of the girls would fall back so I could stay in a path and so could they. Well, none of them did, till the last minute when either they realized I was very grey haired and maybe old, or maybe that I was a lot taller than any of them, but finally one of the teenagers fell back to let me pass. The women were clearly their mothers, you'd think if about 16 year olds were clued out at least the mothers would say something but they didn't. Now that I write that, if they ever had taught their girls manners it wouldn't have happened. As we passed I called out a hearty "Hello, great day" and got no response. I bet I was called a snooty blank under their breath.
I get a little mixed up between Ella and Nathan sometimes so I often find myself saying "Ella, can you please sit down on your bottom? Mummy needs to put your collar on so we can go out for a walk". She always does what I have asked so I just assume she understands 'human'
So good to read this because I usually talk conversationally to Snowie - not intentionally, comes out naturally - and then I think I'm not cueiung him properly. So pleased I'm not entirely wrong! I am though amazed he appears to understand conversational instruction. Like: Come here to put your collar on. Wait here so I can check if there are cars in the road. Go say hallo to Granny (if my mom visits). He does everything as expected. Fluke? Other visual cues? Habit? Obvious what is expected in that moment?
They can certainly pick out the key words. Tatze can pick out 'Zaba' from any sentence and rushes to the door in anticipation.
A gundog trainer who trials his dogs used to say "bot, bot darling" when he wanted his dog to sit, just to see the horrified expressions on the other handlers' faces
